Pepsi, LG, Reliance garner high recall during India-Holland one-dayer, says Indianet survey

Cola giant Pepsi hogged the largest chunk of viewer mindspace during India's opening match with minnows Holland on February 12 at the World Cup 2003. The beverage brand notched up 63 per cent recall in the penultimate (seventh) hour of the match followed by LG and Reliance at 20 per cent each. These findings and many more are part of Mumbai-based Indianet Marketing Services' concurrent viewership study conducted across the four metros of Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata and Chennai on the day of the match.

The most interesting revelation, according to Ranjit Ghosh, director, Indianet Marketing Services, is that more than half the sample size surveyed sat through the commercials during breaks. "The general assumption is that viewers do not watch commercials during breaks. But our study points out almost 54 per cent of the sample size surveyed did watch the commercials during most of the breaks," he states.

A total of 9,946 households were contacted across the four metros, of which 3,031 households were found to be watching the match that day. Male viewership showed a higher skew as compared to female viewership with the final hours touching a little over 80 per cent. In contrast, female viewership progressively declined to below 20 per cent in the sixth, seventh and eighth hours of the match.

The survey, however, did not get into the details of viewership bifurcation across MAX and DD. "The aim was to study viewership and advertising trends of the opening match," reasons Ghosh. "Hence, a bifurcation of findings across channels wasn't possible. Also, our field executives had limited time available with respondents," he adds.

When asked to recall brand pop-ups or live features, most respondents were able to recollect the "comic tiger" (on MAX) and not much of the other stuff flashing on the screen from time-to-time, he says. BSNL recorded the highest in terms of recall with a single digit figure of 5 per cent in the final hour followed by Reliance Mobile with 4 per cent and Samsung, LG and Bajaj Boxer with 2 per cent each.

The 15-19 and 20-24 year age groups watched the match in its entirety while older age groups - especially respondents over 50 years - seemed content flipping channels. Teenagers and young adults numbered 805 and 722 whereas 24 per cent of the older population (the highest among various age groups) flipped channels.

"Despite being pitted against a weaker cricketing nation, viewership for the opening match was very high without people taking leave from work. In the case of the India-Australia match (on February 15), the streets were virtually deserted," adds Ghosh. © 2003 agencyfaqs!